Dr Ahila Sambamoorthy is on the Faculty of Language and English Literature
at the National University of Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.

THE SEA-GOD

This sultry coastline
where moggies draw territorial boundaries
framed by ocean-marooned fish
is mine

The earth is flat
where the stony horizon meets the sky
our eyes rove
in search of a wandering star
    But all you see is the sulphur-yellow glare
        of far-flung lighthouses

Black water cracks under my feet
I fall through a shimmering underpass
reach rock bottom
see Oceanus
        wraith-like . . .

All is benumbed

MOPING

Equatorial island life
a sebaceous seashore
of common shells and dead wood
the raw islanders’ dunghill

its splendour of emerald-turquoise waves
long bleached by the sun

Shrivelled sea coconuts –
woeful mahogany-burnt fishermen
people crawl like lice out of threadbare huts
giant rats dine with the mob and tailess cats
and sewage pipes ravish the open-sea

You are shell-shocked
    this land is bitter
        unwashed
    no Asian Delight
    your refuge only the endless ocean
    and its indolent breezes

    An unfinished land of clay

RAIN

On watering slopes of hilly land
where white streams echo
blooms the concolvulus
Thundering rain-clouds
are resplendent with lightning
Creeping field-beans snake-plants
    and the jade-stemmed mango shoot
    drip with water
The dark-eyed monkey
leaps from tree to tree
and the red-mouthed crane
calls from the coral-tree

Below
red-padi sings on riverine plains
Bright green bamboos caress the sky
and purple lotus blooms on black ponds

Moist dusk courts rice-fields and banyan trees
hides night-birds and insects
    Only fire-flies dance in the cool
        like shooting-stars

SANCTUARY

Walk the gilded earth
patterned with blossoms
of full-budded Indian beech

below lofty mountains scattered with rocks
cleansed by streams fed with rain
like a freshly-washed sapphire

Red paste flows from the hills yonder
arched by eagle-wood forests
where the owl and spotted-pigeon nest
white-feathered

in the fresh young moon’s
cool evening light
the silver-boughed fig tree
stands shimmering by the river

ENDURING LAND

An ephemeral throbbing sensation
in the heartland of my heritage
>From unbelonging
    I move to belonging

The temple’s gopurams glitter
Shiva Vishnu Muruga Ganesha
displayed in harlequin silken robes
are gesturing me to kneel
A bare-chested priest intones mantras
kindling the golden Agni
    an angelus to his rites

In my stately hotel
I lick the platter clean of ambrosia
while on the street below
a man defecates in the undergrowth

The tight gnarled arterial streets
are clotted with gaudy bazaars
boast their stench of bilious manure
    a waxen woman seeks the trishaw’s shade
    her bulk emaciating her
    alzheimer-struck slave

Toiling rustic stagger
with their bane of blighted harvests
Consumptive mothers crawl out of
cramped mud-huts
their withered breasts unbeckoning
to the parched throats of dehydrated infants
The jaundiced naked child
festering with postules
frolics under the cruel sun
Distempered boars and rabid dogs
ungainly with distended abdomens
partake in the revelry

Leprous Syphilitic
cads vagabonds roughnecks delinquents
all bear the angst of destitution
    their hearts carved out of gall                    
    These then are the deranged faces
of the land’s inglorious philistines

These then are the heart-wrenching sight
through which my blood flows

(Based upon impressions of New Delhi. Composed: September 1993, Petaling Jaya)